


The Dissolution of Theodore Calvi

by thethingsunsaid



Category: A Harlot High and Low, La Comédie Humaine - Honoré de Balzac, Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 03:27:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1453741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thethingsunsaid/pseuds/thethingsunsaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"the famous hero of the Corsican vendetta, the handsome Theodore Calvi, known as Madeleine..with light hair and hollow, dull blue eyes...and a twitching of the muscles peculiar to Corsicans, denoting that excessive irritability which makes them so prompt to kill in any sudden squabble...imprisoned for life at eighteen for eleven murders, (and) thanks to the influential interference paid for with vast sums, had been made the fellow convict of Jacques Collin."-Scenes from a Courtesan's Life, Honoré de Balzac</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Theodore Calvi is a minor character in a book hardly anyone has read. But for some reason he just would not get out of my head. 
> 
> So this happened.
> 
> Featuring far too many OCs, ridiculous amounts of angst and manpain and the romanticisation of a character who is, by all accounts, a total psycho.

 

 

It started, they told him, when Cesar Stradoni tried to make off with his Great-Grandmother Angioletta's prize pig and, in the ensuing fight, she stabbed him to death with a rusty nail to protect her virtue.

Of course the way the Stradonis told it, the animal had really been Cesar's all along and Great-Grandmother Angioletta was the nefarious pig-thief. But, as his father said, you couldn't trust the word of a Stradoni bacon-snatcher; and by then he was old enough to understand that it didn't matter anyway.

In the end, no-one really cared now who the pig had belonged to. What mattered was that the honour of the Calvis had to be avenged.

The year Theodore was seven, the embers of the vendetta died down to glowering looks and half-hearted brawls. There had been outbreaks of fever all over the island, and people were too busy trying to survive to think up inventive ways of killing each other. His sister Lucia and two of his brothers fell sick and suddenly nobody seemed to have any time for Theodore.

He spent his time roaming the beaches and climbing barefoot after gulls' eggs up the cliffs his parents had expressly forbidden him to go near. That was how he discovered the cave.

It was an excellent cave, fifty feet above the shell-strewn beach, and he had ambitious plans to make it into his own private hideout.

It was therefore an unpleasant surprise when he climbed up on the second day to find it occupied by other children.

The intruders were a boy and a girl around his own age; short and stocky with the same curly brown hair and turned-up noses. The girl was the taller of the two, and she stepped forward, her arm going protectively around the boy.

The extraordinary thing was that Theodore had never seen them before.

“Who are _you_?” he demanded, recovering quickly. “And what are you doing in my cave?” He put his hands on his hips the way his mother did when she found someone with their fingers in the bread dough.

“S'not yours,” the girl said, sticking her bottom lip out. “We found it last week. Anyway, who're you?”

“I'm Theodore.” said Theo, who was not prepared to admit he had only found the cave yesterday. “Everyone knows me. How come I haven't seen you around before? What do you do here?”

“We're from over the hill” said the boy, quietly. “We got sent to live with our cousins because our parents – got sick,”

“And died” the girl added, glaring at Theo with matter-of-fact ghoulishness. “Our sister got sent to Corte, but they kept us together because we're twins.”

Despite himself, Theodore was impressed. He'd never actually been as far the nearest town, though Father had promised to take him, and to be an orphan _and_ a twin was a level of romanticism thus far unsurpassed among his acquaintances. He resolved immediately that these two were going to be his friends, before anyone else had a chance to claim them.

“And everyone does not know you,” the girl continued, unaware of Theodore's newfound determination. “That's silly. I bet people in- in _Normandy_ don't know you!.”

“Well” said Theo, unabashed “They will one day.” He made a mental note to ask about Normandy when he got home.

“My name's Niculai” interceded the boy, looking anxious to avoid a fight. “But everyone calls me Niccu. My sister's Cristina. D'you want to play with us?”

The girl glared at her brother. “Oh all right,” she said grudgingly giving in. “There's more games you can do with three, anyway. I suppose you'd better call me Cris.”

“Well” said Theo, with immense magnanimity. “I expect I could share my cave with you a bit.”

The cave made a good den, a cool refuge from the sun. They played endless games of pretend, until it was time to climb barefoot like fearless monkeys to the grassy knolls above. Then they would run home and be scolded for running off for so long, reveling in the secret knowledge of their hidden fortress.

It was not until the next week that Theodore's harassed parents warned him on no account to go near those new Stradoni brats; and by that time it was far too late.

They made the den together, an illicit place for an illicit partnership. Over the years it was refined with shell collections, blankets and a rickety table that had nearly resulted in Theo plummeting to his untimely death. The fact that they knew it was wrong only gave a pleasurable frisson of danger to the fun. Niccu and Cris's aunt and uncle had thirteen children to worry about; they had no time for two foundlings thrust on them by circumstance. Theodore was the baby of his own family; with his golden curls and angelic blue eyes he could get away with almost anything. And both Theo and Cristina were excellent and inventive liars.

For different reasons, they were all glad of the escape. On St. John's Eve, two days after Theo's ninth birthday they stole away and built a small fire on the rocky floor of the cavern. They held hands and jumped over the flames together, declaring themselves _commere_ and _comperes_ , sworn friends for life.

Then, the summer he was ten, Alesiu ran tattling to their father that he was a traitor, and he was given his first sound thrashing and an admonishing lecture on the evils of fraternizing with those dirty Stradonis. His parents started to keep a closer eye on him, and he was forced to spend most of his time following his three older brothers about like a crab on a string, or playing with his sisters, Lucia and Angioletta, who submitted him to awful indignities. Despite Theo and Cristina's constant disagreements, he was certain she would never have tried to braid his curls. Even if she did, Niccu would have talked her out of it.

He got better at sailing, learned how to shoot and fish, and begged in vain to be allowed to join Andrias and Carlu when they hunted for wild boar in spring.

Sometimes, Andrias hunted other things too. He had his own vendetta knife, a lovely, deadly little thing with _“I am vengeance; vengeance is death”_ inscribed on the hilt. Their father had it made for him, and Andrias was inordinately proud of it, taking every opportunity to take it out and boast about the number of Stradonis he was going to stick. He claimed that it was him who shot Petru Stradoni in the hills, and Theo was not quite sure whether he believed it or not. These days, when he saw Niccu or Cris they avoided each others gaze.

He still visited the den though. Sometimes he left things there, and when he returned they were always gone, something else left in their place. It was half-stealing, half gift-exchange; an intermediate step between friendship and murder.

The year he was thirteen, two uncles and a cousin were killed, and his father took him to the graveyard. Not to mourn their dead, but to visit the cluster of stones that represented the Stradoni family, going back three generations. “These stones” he told Theo, “represent the honour of our family. Every time one of us kills one of them, we avenge the hungry ghosts of our fathers and brothers.” He looked solemnly at Theo. “To die without ever avenging one's family is a terrible thing, and death can come at any time.”

Theo nodded, looking at the rows and rows of headstones. They looked like an awfully heavy weight to live up to.

So he carried around his gun and his own sharp dagger – one a hand-me-down from Carlu and the other Andrias' old knife. Theo considered this most unfair; why should they get all the best things just by virtue of being older?

But though he had several times stalked Lisandru, Niculaiu's oldest foster brother, through the scrub, he inevitably returned with nothing but game in his bag.

Another two years went by; he turned fifteen and Lucia got engaged. Alesiu killed his first man, and their father helped him pay off uncle Carlu's old fishing boat, patched up and repainted. Alesiu let Theo take it out sometimes, mostly so he could go and pay court to Lisabetta Zarconetti instead of catching lobsters like he was supposed to.

On the night of Lucia's wedding, Theo was sulking.

Ostensibly, it was because he was in disgrace for letting two of the goats escape onto old Francolo's land, where they ate a sizeable amount of his garden and a set of smallclothes that had been hanging up to dry. Mostly, it was because he was almost sixteen, but everyone still treated him like a child. He especially disliked Lucia's new husband Silvestru, who ruffled his hair and called him “little brother” like they were already related, even though he wasn't _that_ much older than Theo. And now Lucia was going to go off and start producing more brats, as if Angioletta's two – soon to be three- didn't get in the way enough already.

Unfortunately, no-one else shared his black mood. The wedding coincided with the Easter celebrations, and everyone was in high spirits for the party.

Well, thought Theo savagely, let them have their revelry. He would take the bottle of home-brewed spirits he'd lifted it from Andrias' stores three weeks ago up to the cliffs, and drink a solitary toast to life's unfairness and the empty futility of existence.

Dusk was just beginning to darken the skies as he began his walk. It wasn't long before the sounds of music and laughter grew tinny and distant, fading out of earshot. It was mostly out of convenience he decided to climb up to the old den. The view of sunset over the sea was suitably desolate, and there was a pile of mouldering blankets and skins near the back that would make a tolerably comfortable bed if he succumbed to sleep.

By the time he reached the top, the shadows were reaching black fingers over the rock. He'd stuffed a bundle of sticks in his pack to build a fire, and it made climbing harder than usual, He reached the ledge that marked the entrance with a feeling of relief and pulled himself up.

Then he stopped.

For one thing, there was already a fire laid, unlit but ready.

For another, there was Niculaiu Stradoni half-crouched in front of it, clearly getting ready to strike the tinder.

For a long moment, they stared at each other warily. It had been almost five years and the world had changed. They were almost grown now, with adult responsibilities that included the duty of dealing death. Theo half-expected Niculaiu to stand up and simply push him off the cliff, and he realised, horribly, that he would be quite powerless to do anything to stop it.

Then Niccu said “Well I wasn't expecting company” and Theo replied:“Neither was I, but it's a good thing you're here, because I've forgotten my tinderbox!”

Niccu laughed. Despite his newly-deepened voice, it was the same surprisingly infectious chuckle he'd had when he was eight and Theo realised, with a little rush of gratitude, that nothing had really changed after all.

He pulled himself over the ledge and dumped his pack on the floor, taking a seat on his favourite stone.

“You brought extra wood though” Niccu said, finally managing to coax a little flame into existence.

Theo grinned. “That's not all I brought.” He pulled the bottle out with a flourish, and Niccu whistled.

“Nice haul! Does your brother know you've been stealing his wine?”

“It's not stealing, it's.... redistribution. I helped pick the fruit – it's only fair I get the pick of the benefits too.”

“I'm not sure your brother would agree with that.”

“He doesn't have to – he's not going to find out!” He uncorked the bottle and took a swig, passing it over to Niccu, who took a large gulp.

“By the Virgin! That's good stuff!”

Theo smirked. The night was warm and the stone was more uncomfortable than he remembered. Theo spread his coat out and sat with his back to the fire, looking out over the purple ocean. He gestured with the bottle, and Niccu came over and followed his example, pausing first to give the fire a final poke and set a couple of sticks on. They sat for a little while like that in companionable silence, passing the bottle back and forth, watching the sinking sun set the sea alight.

“How's Cris?” Theo asked, trying for casual and hearing the tightness in his voice anyway.

Niccu made a face. “They're trying to get her married off. It's set for next August.”

“Who to?”

“Bernardo Cavanu”

“Old Cavanu? But he must be forty, at least!”

Niccu took another swallow. “Yes, but he's got a good farm and that's all they care about. Still, at least Cris'll be well out of it. If Cavanu lets me, maybe I'll come work for him instead.”

“She should have married me” Theo declared. “That was our plan, remember? I'm not old.”

Niccu snorted. “Theo, if Cris had married you, all of our relatives would unite in order to execute you. And they'd be disappointed, because you would either have already murdered each other, or dared each other into oblivion”

This was actually a fair summation of Theo and Cris's relationship, but it stung nonetheless.

“You said we were never allowed to do dares again” Theo reminded him mulishly.

“Yes, because you broke your arm, _twice_ , and Cris was almost _gored to death_ by a wild boar!”

“Happy times,” said Theo, with fond nostalgia.

“If you two ever find a common cause, the world is doomed.” Niccu predicted darkly

“My sister's getting married tonight.” Theo remarked, some time later, though of course Niccu already knew that. Quite possibly everyone on the island knew it and certainly, if they didn't, it was not through a lack of effort on Lucia's part.

“And you're not out there dancing with the pretty girls because...?”

“Bah!” Theo looked up at the sky, where the first stars were beginning to appear. “Who cares about girls? I'd rather be up here with you any day.”

Niccu laughed and elbowed him in the ribs. His elbows were sharp – he was thinner than Theo remembered, his collar bones standing out prominently above his ragged collar. Theo elbowed him back.

“You're just saying that,” Niccu said, and Theo could hear the smile sliding slyly beneath his words. “Because you still look like a ten-year-old. Look at you – smooth as a baby's bum. They want to kiss a man, and find only a little boy.” He broke off, laughing too much to talk, and made an obscene gesture, denoting exactly which part of Theo he was impugning the maturity of.

Theo punched him on the arm. “Oi!” he said. “I'll have you know I have ample manliness. More than ample. Manhood to spare. And I've kissed lots 'f girls” Which was true. “Hundreds” he added, for good measure, which was not.

“Reallllly” said Niccu, drawing the word out sarcastically.

“More'n you, anyway” said Theo. “You're all bony” he poked Niccu in the ribs. “Bony like a skeleton. Who wants to fuck a skeleton?” He wondered if Niccu's hip bones stuck out the same way his collar bones did.

“Lots of people” Niccu said, with portentous dignity. “And ghosts” he added.

For some reason, Theo found this hysterically funny. “You been having it off with the dead have you? And you say I'm bad with girls – that's a new category of desperate!”

“Not me.” Niccu explained. “Skeletons. Which 'm not. Here, pass the bottle.”

Theo did. “Not much left.” he said, nudging in closer because it was cold. “Anyway, you are. Look I can feel your ribs.” He shoved a hand up under Niccu's shirt to demonstrate at the same time as Niccu turned around to face him, and Theo became aware of three things.

Firstly, that Niccu's eyes were wide and almost black in the starlight; secondly, that he was very drunk and, thirdly, that he was excruciatingly turned on.

He moved his hand under Niccu's shirt, and Niccu made a noise that was half-whimper, half-breath, his lips parting ever-so-slightly, and, almost without meaning to, Theo kissed him.

He tasted of alcohol, sour and sweet at the same time. For an instant he was completely still, and Theo just had time to panic, before he was kissing back, his tongue moving and his hands moving too, one under Theo's shirt and the other over his breeches, and all Theo could think was that it felt so good. He fumbled with the tie on Niccu's breeches, and Niccu had to undo them for him, which was embarrassing, but he didn't care, he just wanted skin and,  _oh_ , that was _good_.

The hand sliding between his thighs made him gasp and thrust and the ground was hard and cold and when fingers pinched his nipple it hurt but he never wanted to stop. He'd never touched another boy's privates before.

It was soft, like the skin of a peach or a baby mouse. Like touching himself, but different – thicker and less hairy and a little bit terrifying in the same way that touching a girl was, in case you got it wrong. He tried to move his hand in the same way that he would on himself but it was hard to think past the sensation of Niccu's fingers.

It must have worked though, because Niccu made that little sound again – oh, he loved that sound. Everything was lips and tongue on his neck and hands on his arse and fingers moving- and he was going to come and almost didn't want to. Well, he did, but then this would stop, and he'd have to think about things again, and that's what he didn't want, not ever, just wanted everything to be right here and now, Niccu under his hands and warm skin and smooth muscle, uncomfortable and wonderful and. Niccu who'd been here forever and now was in his arms, warm and solid and, _oh God,_ touching him. 

* * *

He woke up in the dark, somewhere between hungover and still drunk.

It was cold now, sometime in the deep watches before dawn. Niccu lay beside him, asleep. He looked very young like that, and vulnerable, as if anything might happen to him. Theo wanted to stay, just to make sure nothing did.

Maybe they could just run away. Become banditti. Go to France.

Anything was possible.

But right now, he supposed he ought to get back, before his stupid family started to worry and he got into more trouble. The fire had died down, but he blew on the embers and put the rest of the sticks on. After some deliberation, he took his coat off and carefully covered Niccu with it.

Halfway back down he decided that climbing down a cliff in the dark while still drunk was definitely one of the worst ideas he'd ever had.

He made a mental promise to all the saints he could think of that, if he survived, he would never, ever do it again.

Miraculously, he made it down in one piece and started staggering towards home.

The first thing he saw was the cloud, dark even in the first rays of dawn. _That's odd,_ he thought. _I wonder if it's going to rain?_

There was a heavy smell in the air, like ash and burning food, but even when topped the grassy rise and came in sight of the farmhouse he didn't quite understand. He thought for a moment that he must have come the wrong way, even though he'd walked this path all his life and the next-nearest cottage was half a mile away.

But this couldn't be right, couldn't be his home.

That was when he started to run.

Someone had let the animals out, and two of the goats were milling about a little way off. The outbuildings were mostly intact, only scorched.

There were groups of people standing about in talking in low voices. They stared at him and somewhere in the back of his head he realised they were all from the village, half an hour's walk away. He couldn't see his parents or his brothers or – anyone. He stared at the house.

The roof was mostly gone, and the walls were black. The door frame had collapsed, and crouching in front of it was a person, bent over a charred piece of wood.

As he got closer he realised that the person was his cousin Matteus, and the low sobbing in his ears was coming, not from Theo, but from him. He looked up from his log as Theo approached. He was black with soot, and under it his hands looked red and burned. “Theodore” he said, blankly. His voice was unrecognisable, hoarse and ruined, as if the smoke had burned away his lungs.

“Matteus” he said unsteadily. “Matti, where is everyone? Lucia? _My parents?_ Did they take them back to the village?”

Matteus didn't answer, Instead he said dreamily: “It was the wine. Those bastard Stradonis put something in the wine. Everyone got dizzy and sick. I went out to take a piss and when I woke up they were riding off.”

“ _Who was?_ ” Theo demanded. “My brothers? They got out then?”

But Matteus wasn't listening. He was looking down at the thing in his arms. “Marisa” he whispered. “I tried to pull her out Theo. I tried. The door was barred, but I broke it down.” He looked up at Theo, and his eyes were bleak and terrible. “But she burned Theo. She wouldn't stop burning.” He began to cry again, and Theo understood suddenly and horribly that what he had taken for burnt twigs were curled fingers, and that the twisted thing in Mateus's arms was what was left of Marisa, Matti's younger sister.

Without knowing how he got there, he was on his knees, vomiting. When he had finished, there was a broad hand clamped onto his shoulder and he turned to look into the miller's weary soot-streaked face. Theodore wiped a hand over his mouth.

“My family?” he asked. It came out as a whisper.

The miller shook his head, “I'm sorry, Theodore.” He offered his hand, but Theo pushed away, ducking heedlessly past into the ruin of their farmhouse.

The flames had mostly died, but small fires still guttered here and there. Everything was hot to touch, even the ground. It was so wrong it seemed unreal.

Everywhere he saw little glimpses of his home, burnt not-quite out of recognition. The dresser was still half-standing, the china black and cracked. The great stove that his grandmother had had specially imported from the mainland looked almost the same, except that the black metal was dull. His mother had professed to hate that stove, but she always kept it polished to a glossy sheen.

The bodies lay where they had fallen, hardly recognisable as anything that had once been alive.

He made himself turn them over, looking for some sign that would identify them. Usually there was none.

He shoved aside a great lump of charred wood and found two little charred shapes under it. It puzzled him for a moment, and then with a sickening lurch, he realised it had been the big dining table. They must have tried to hide underneath it.

His two youngest cousins, he guessed, but he could not connect the small black figures with the two noisy girls playing hide-and-seek in the church yesterday.

The fire had burned hottest in the kitchen. At first he thought there had been nobody in there, until he stepped on something and looked down to see it was a ribcage.

In the other two rooms, the heat must have been less intense. He turned over a scorched hairless thing, and saw something shift on its neck. Carefully, he lifted the small piece of metal up, rubbing at the soot with his thumbnail.

It was Angioletta's necklace.

Angioletta who had long yellow hair, the same shade as his own. She had worn her best blue dress and now it was nothing but ashes. He knew she would have danced with all the men, even though she was expecting her third baby, to make her husband jealous. It never worked; Antone was far too easy-going to get jealous.

He laid her back down gently, beside the tiny corpse of his niece.

He found Andrias by the door. Theo guessed he had been trying to break it down but the bar had been on the outside. He knew it was Andrias, because the little vendetta knife that Theo had coveted so much lay half-buried in the ash beside him. He rubbed at it; the words were still visible. It did not look beautiful any more.

He tried to count in his head who had been there; to work out how many were lost but he couldn't think properly.

So he just kept looking.

It was when he walked past Angioletta for the third time that he remembered Josef.

Josef was three years old; he was Theo's eldest nephew and he had been ill with a fever last night. Angioletta had left him with her friend Martina who wouldn't be at the party because her uncle had a feud with the Zarconettis.

Which meant Josef was not here.

Which meant Josef might not be dead.

He had almost forgotten that anyone else was there, and he paid no attention to them as they shouted after him. Martina lived on the outskirts of the village, and Theo could run there in under twenty minutes.

Angioletta had doted on her little boy. Theodore had never understood why; Josef had a permanently snotty nose and was always underfoot because his sister seemed to regard Theo as her personal babysitter.

But as he ran, he prayed, over and over to every saint he could think of. If Josef was all right, he swore, he would never say anything bad to him again. He would go somewhere safe; somewhere his nephew could grow up and never have to worry about anyone trying to kill him. He'd tell him stories of everyone in their family, so they would never be forgotten. He'd tell him what their father said, that the Calvi family was so old they had a town named after them; and that Andrias had always claimed it was probably the other way round. It was suddenly very important that there was someone else left in the world with Angioletta's blue eyes and curly dark hair like Lucia's, who remembered his grandmother's ridiculous counting games and had rode on Alesiu's back like a horse.

He pounded on Martina's door, but it was her husband who opened it.

“Josef” he gasped, sucking in air through burning lungs. “ _Is Josef here?_ ”

The man stared at him with wide eyes, taking in his soot-covered clothes and blistered hands. “Martina didn't tell you? She set off an hour ago when we heard.” He shook his head. “Angioletta came back for him. His fever had gone down, and she didn't want him to miss the party.”

For a moment Theo only looked at him uncomprehending. Then, numbly, he turned away.

Somewhere behind him, a thousand miles away, he heard the door click quietly shut.

* * *

They buried the dead in one plot. He sold Angie's silver necklace and brought the money, along with the small pile of tarnished coins his parents had kept under the bed, to pay for the funeral and the headstone. He worried it wasn't enough for both, but the mason took one look at Theo's steady tear-streaked face and blackened handful of coins and wouldn't touch them. He made the sign to avert the evil eye, and carved the stone himself.

One stone, with seventeen names.

Theodore kept the knife.

He had four surviving family members left: Mateus, two cousins who had stayed at home with their sick child and an elderly great-aunt. Slowly, the truth of what had happened emerged: the wine had been poisoned with a mixture of aconite and agaric, and then four men had rode in shortly after midnight to set fire to the place. Mateus hadn't seen their faces, but he recognised the horse.

Lisandru Stradoni was his first: a gunshot wound to the back. If he had done it earlier his family might be alive. He killed Lisandru's brothers while they were out on a hunting trip. Afterwards, he took their money and guns. Life as a bandito was not quite as romantic as he had imagined it to be as a child.

People started calling him a hero.

Theo didn't feel like a hero. He didn't feel like much of anything any more.

Cristina Stradoni got married and became Cristina Canavu. Niccu left to live with them and work the farm, as he had said he would.

Theo ambushed him in the byre, one arm around Niccu's skinny neck and the knife clenched in Theo's other hand.

He saw his coat hanging up on a nail out of reach of the animals.

“Don't move” he hissed.

Of course, Niccu did, because he was an idiot who could never do what he was told. He twisted around to face Theo.

“You really ought to listen to someone holding a knife at your throat” Theo said. Niccu was thinner than ever; old man Cavanu was obviously feeding him worse than his aunt and uncle.

Niccu glanced down at Theo's hand on his shoulder. “Your hands are shaking.”

Theo shrugged. “They do that sometimes, now.”

Niccu stared at him, tears shining in his wide brown eyes. “I didn't know, Theo, I swear. I went home the next day and they told me.” He sounded sick. “I'm so sorry. I didn't know.”

“I know you didn't” Theo told him, which was true. Niccu was a bad liar and terrible at keeping secrets. He'd always had Theo and Cris to do that for him.

“I missed you” he said, and that was true as well.

He felt Niccu collapse into him, all trust and sharp edges. His breath was warm against the hollow of Theo's neck.

The knife was very sharp; it went in fast and easily. Niccu stiffened against him, letting out a high, pained sound. Theo held him as he struggled, and then slowly went limp, blood pooling warm and sticky against his hand. He felt Niccu's breaths coming shallower and shallower, until they didn't come at all.

Gently, Theo laid him down. His eyes were open, but he didn't look surprised, like the others had. Only sorry. Niculai always was apologising for things that weren't his fault.

With one hand, Theodore smoothed his brown eyes shut. He could almost have been asleep, except he wasn't.

Before he left, he unhooked his coat from the nail and tucked it carefully around Niccu's cooling body.

After all, he told himself, he could always get a new coat. The brown one Tomasu Stradoni was wearing just now was particularly nice.

He looked down and saw that his hands weren't shaking at all.

In the end, it didn't matter that Niccu hadn't known. What mattered was that the honour of the Calvis had to be avenged.


	2. the Making of Madeleine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It is a torture added to a torture, this life for two that the vocabulary of the bagne calls ‘coupling.’ This community of the chain is a servitude imposed upon the weaker for the profit of the stronger or more perverse; it is often en exhortation to the most shameful penchants: impure unions that certain administrators did not shy away from using to their own advantage.”- Maurice Alhoy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Vautrin appears!
> 
> Trigger warnings for rape, flogging and non-consensual cross dressing.

They caught up with him two-and-a-half years later, on the outskirts of the town his father said was named after their ancestor, and his brother had argued was the other way around.

Drifting in and out of consciousness, he could hear them fighting again, raised voices shouting just outside the door.

Then he woke up properly, and realised it was only someone arguing with a jailer outside, and that it did not matter anyway. They were dead and Theodore was chained up in a dank prison cell in Calvi, waiting for the guillotine.

On the day of his trial, they dragged him out to the Town Hall, along with six others awaiting sentence. The hall was packed with people, muttering and pointing like noisy gulls. Theodore ignored them. The magistrate's voice was clear and carrying as he read out the list of names.

Eleven counts of murder.

Eleven Stradoni headstones, and Theodore had been wrong; they were not heavy at all.

“There'll be a fucking riot if they execute him,” muttered one of the other prisoners behind him, sounding bitterly amused.

Theodore thought about this, the magistrate's words fading into a legal drone in the background.

He had killed eleven people. His name was famous over half the island now. On the other hand, that meant that half the farmwives in the crowd outside had spent evenings exclaiming over his light hair and wide blue eyes, as he told their children stories of daring exploits, turning his brother's knife over and over in his fingers. Everyone understood that Theodore was only doing his duty. He was a hero, following the rules of vengeance.

Besides, he was very young, and terribly handsome.

In the end, the man behind him was right.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment in the _bagne_ of Rochefort. On their way back to the gaol, he heard the clink of something being passed over from one prisoner to another.

“There you go, you miserly bastard,” someone behind whispered, sounding annoyed. “He missed the death sentence after all."

The man who had spoken earlier laughed, like stones crunching together. “Oh, Rochefort's still a death sentence all right. Just a slower one.”

 

_* * *_

 

The crowd that gathered for his exposition was muttering and restless. No matter how hard Theodore looked, he couldn't see Cristina Cavanu, and he didn't know whether to be grateful or sorry. He didn't know why; he had thought somehow she might be there.

The guards tied his hands behind his back and painted the names of the dead on the placard above his head, as if he should be ashamed of them.

They read out the charges, and the sentence once more. Theodore closed his eyes and pictured his family. They would have been proud of him. He was sure of it

Then they pushed the brand into his shoulder, and he screamed. He felt it go through his skin, the layer of fat beneath bubbling and melting as the letters seared through into the muscle.

TP. _Travaux forcés à perpétuité._

Hard labour for life.

“You're a dead man now,” a guard told him mockingly; a nameless voice with the face behind it a blurred impression of heat and pain.

 _No,_ thought Theodore, through a haze of agony and the smell of scorched flesh. _I've been dead for nearly three years. Now I am in hell._

In fact, the wagon with its cargo of chained, sunburned convicts en route to Rochefort did indeed bear a mocking resemblance to the tormented carvings around the door of his old church. Three men fell sick on the way and had to be carried; two died. With his hair cropped close under the green bonnet, and dressed in a scarlet smock two sizes too big, Theodore suspected he looked even younger than usual and scowled.

They arrived on rainy Thursday, in the early hours of the morning. It was shortly after sunrise, and the drizzle leaked down sporadically out of the red sky like angry tears

Every newcomer to the _bagne_ was chained by the ankle to an old hand. His was a man named Yves Barbeau; a tall, taciturn fellow with muscles like slabs of meat and thick black hair that reminded Theo of the wild boar back home. Like everyone else, he stank with an unpleasant miasma of sweat and mildew and human excrescence.

In Corsica there had been streams and rivers to wash in; the cool shock of the sea; every so often a cottage with a soapy basin heated on the stove. Theodore had never regarded cleanliness as a privilege before.

Now he understood that it was one that would not be extended to him again. The harsh baptism on arrival in cold dirty water had done nothing to remove the grime of a Corsican gaol; it was merely an exercise in shivering humiliation. Looking at Barbeau, he saw that he would very soon be crawling with lice.

They were set to work on the grand fatigue, breaking up rock and clearing scrub for the road. It was mid-July and the sun beat down like a curse. It was not the vital heat of the island but a torrid closeness with the damp, oppressive quality of a fever-dream. Flies thronged the air, settling on any exposed piece of skin; worse than the flies were the mosquitoes. They crawled under sleeves and necklines, turning the itchy wool into a torment.

The ground around the work-site was swampland, muddy and treacherous. In the distance he could just see the Atlantic ocean, a taunting strip of sparkling blue.

Staring at it, he missed his footing for the third time and bit out a curse. Barbeau looked round with a scowl, glaring at him.

“Be more careful, can't you?” he growled, jerking his half of the chain, so that Theodore went sprawling into the muddy water, the manacle grinding painfully into his ankle. Grimly, he pushed himself back up, wiping the stinking mud from his hands onto his already filthy smock.

Rations were passed out in the work break: a loaf of mouldy black bread, watery bean soup and a portion of wine.

“How long have you been here?” Theodore asked Barbeau, inspecting his lunch.

His bread appeared to have been colonized by two separate colonies of green fur that were now battling it out to the death

“Seven years” Barbeau answered, and helped himself to Theo's wine ration.

“Hey!”

Theodore stood up indignantly, and then realised that there was nowhere to go. He could do nothing without Barbeau's agreement, and the other man was easily twice his weight. He made to sit down, and was sent sprawling once more as Barbeau jerked on the chain. The dubious bread plummeted into the swamp, absorbing muddy water like a fat black sponge.

Barbeau snorted with laughter. “My apologies lad, but someone should teach you not to be so uppity. It's share and share alike round here.”

Theodore pulled his face out of the dirt, fists clenching as he looked at Barbeau. His chainmate didn't move from his seat on the pile of rock; only gave another bark of laughter. “Are you going to hit me? Go on then- but it will only get you a flogging and I warn you that's not something you want. You won't look nearly so pretty with half your skin missing.”

Theodore glared at him. “Be wary of me!” he whispered, with all of the venom he could muster.

Back home, people respected those words. They meant that death was coming for you; that you had insulted the honour of a man who would pay you back for it with a knife in the ribs while you slept.

Here Barbeau only laughed at him again. “Wary of you? Come off it! What are you, twelve? Thirteen? Or are you a girl in disguise, perchance?” He reached out to ruffle Theodore's cropped hair, knocking the green cap into the mud.

Theodore jerked away, splashing more foetid water over his smock, dulling the scarlet to the colour of old blood. He stared down at the cap, the dirty smudges against the green. The touch of air on his scalp was like cool fingers after the itchy wool.

Then the guard's whistle blew, signifying the end of the break, and he jammed the soiled thing back on. There were strict penalties for being out of uniform.

By the time they were brought back to the _salles_ he felt half-dead. The stench of the place hit him in a reeking nauseous wave, and he gagged. The wagon had at least been in the open air. Here they slept in long dormitories; a sloping plank on either side to serve for a bed. Under each man's place was a bucket-de-nuit half-full and reeking.

No one else seemed particularly bothered by the noisome air. The long room was filled with men in red smocks, all chained in pairs. Convicts talking, playing cards, singing.

He was tired and hot and miserable; all he wanted was to lie down, even if it was on a hard plank in a crowded, stinking, noisy room. To let everything slip away into dreams and oblivion.

Instead, he was dragged over to the middle of the _salle_ , where Barbeau became embroiled in a complicated card game, the rules of which were unfamiliar to him.

“Deal the new lad a hand” somebody called out. He lost quickly; to the vast amusement of all, although it was not clear to him entirely what was forfeit. The colours around him seemed too bright, unreal. He looked around at the noisy, crowded space; at the _forçats_ he was playing cards with, and wondered what their crimes were.

He wanted very badly to be outside, under the watchful stars. He had spent the greater part of the last three years in solitude. Now he realised, with something that was almost pain, he was never going to be alone again.

At last, the whistle blew for lights-out and a guard went round fastening the chains to a long bar at the foot of the bed. Even in sleep, men were coupled together.

The plank was hard, but Theodore was used to the ground. More unsettling were the noises. He had slept plenty of times in one-roomed cottages, but he was not used to the noises of hundreds of people all crammed under one roof.

There were grunts, snores, whispers, coughs, the never-ending scraping clank of the chains; a myriad of small sounds that added up to a cacophony. Despite the darkness, he felt somehow on display. Finally, oblivion descended like a hawk, swift and dreamless.

He was woken by the touch of hands on his ribcage. Disoriented, he tried to look around; the hand on his torso was replaced by one over his mouth. For a moment, he thought, very calmly: _Oh. The Stradoni have come to take their vengeance on me._

It was almost a relief.

Then here was a weight on his back, and a low voice whispered in his ear: “Just keep quiet, sweetheart, and don't make a fuss.”

It took Theodore a long, disorientated moment to remember where he was, another to understand what was going on.

Shortly after that, it became very clear that whatever Barbeau had been expecting, it was not that that Theodore would jack-knife sideways, head-butt him in the nose, and then do his level best to strangle him.

Unfortunately, even scalding indignation was not enough to allow Theodore to overcome someone approximately twice his size in a fistfight.

“You're goig to regred dat.” Barbeau whispered nasally, pinning Theo where he was with one hand and clutching his nose with the other, and shouted loudly for the guards.

From around them came annoyed yells and shouts for silence, but Barbeau refused to let up.

When the sound of booted feet came into earshot, the grip on Theo's shoulder shifted and Barbeau dug his fingers hard and savage into the half-healed brand. Theodore choked back a scream as he felt the skin crack and split, and then there were lanterns and a voice shouting:

“What's the matter then, you sons of whores? Decent men have little enough time without running after you dogs at all hours of the night as well!”

“If you blease, sir” Barbeau spoke up quickly, with a tone of injured innocence impressive in a man sporting a broken nose. “Dis dew one bade indecent broposals do bee sir! Ad when I refused hib, he _hattacked_ be sir!”

“Is that so?” The _gard-chiourme_ dealt a sickening crack to Theodore's skull with his stick, and laid about his shoulders and forearms when he raised them protectively. “Well we'll take it up with the Commissaire tomorrow, but right now you can fuck off back to sleep! And that goes for the lot of you!”

They were hauled before the Commissaire first thing in the morning, a guard standing to attention on either side, as a tall, thin man regarded them over a pair of spectacles.

“Ah, the Corsican. One-seven-eight-nine-six. Causing trouble already? Well, you will soon learn we do not tolerate such habits here, whatever may be the case on your benighted island.” He looked down at the register before him. “The punishment for sodomy here is the barrel, followed by forty lashes of the bastonnade.” He looked Theodore up and down, as if considering. “You will receive thirty, and think yourself lucky; if there is a second offence I will not be so lenient. As for you.” He frowned at Barbeau. “You will be in the cachot until 17896 is healed”

He looked at them, thin-lipped. “You gentlemen are going to be chained together for three years, at the least. You will learn to get along with each other. I do not allow troublemakers here.”

The cachot was solitary confinement, which did not sound particularly like punishment to Theo, though the prisoner he asked said it sent men mad.

He had seen someone on the barrel yesterday, an attempted escapee with a sign around his neck detailing his crime, even though almost everyone here was illiterate.

He had not expected that he would have to stand on the barrel _in a dress._

There was another forçat undergoing the same punishment, a man by the name of Antoine. He was a little older that Theodore; perhaps twenty-five or twenty-six. He laughed good-naturedly at the guards as they shoved him roughly into the oversized gown. Theodore wondered that he could joke at humiliation in such a way; for himself it was all he could do to stand there, curling his hands into fists to try and stop them shaking.

“How can you be so cheerful?” he asked in an undertone, when the guards went to fetch the extra chains.

Antoine grinned at him. “Ah! It speaks after all. I was wondering if you'd lost your tongue completely. As to my liveliness; it is no mystery. We are going to put on a fine show for these men -it's not often anyone gets to see some skirt around here; never mind what's underneath it. When you haven't got a choice, you might as well make the most of what you do have; it's always better to be happy than miserable. Shame's for those who can afford the luxury of it. Besides,” he lowered his voice further “to tell you the truth, I'm more worried about the bastonnade. I've only had ten strokes before – that was for smoking, and, I can tell you, that was bad enough.”

Then the guards came back, and they were marched to the barrels; the show had begun.

Antoine made faces and laughed when people jeered and threw things and tried to look up his skirt. Theodore was grateful; it let him pretend that the whole thing was not really so bad after all. He looked straight ahead, trying to ignore the fact that people were laughing and making rude remarks about him right under his nose.

In his mind, he pictured the all the ways that he would kill Barbeau, one after the other.

The evening sun was red and low in the sky when they were taken down, and marched away.

The bastonnade was done in a small cell, adjoining one of the main _salles_. “That's François de Giraux” Antoine whispered to him, looking white and worried. “He's the executioner for the bagne.”

They were both ordered to strip to the waist. “17896!” one of the guards said, and it took Theodore a moment to remember that was him now.

He was made to lie down on a low bench. Incongruously someone had thought to put a thin mattress on it, as if somehow that would make things better. Antoine was made to hold his feet; a guard took his arms. Theodore gritted his teeth and concentrated on trying to still the tremors that running up and down his spine. He did not want Antoine to think that he was afraid.

Then the tarred rope came down, and thought was wiped out under the screaming pain of each burning _thud_ .

* * *

He woke lying on his belly in the infirmary with his back ripped into bloody furrows, in more agony than he had thought possible.

It was two-and-a-half weeks before he was released, the open wounds crusted into a half-healed mess. Antoine was not; his back had become infected.

“Enjoy your liberty!” he called, laughing weakly at his own joke, as the guards took Theodore off to be manacled to Barbeau once more. “Tell Eugene I'll be out in a week.”

Theodore was not sure how he was supposed to do this; he only knew Eugene from what Antoine had told him, and besides he was in different _salle_ and work-gang.

In the end, it didn't matter. Before Theodore had a chance to pass on the message, Antoine was dead.

* * *

Barbeau's nose had set crookedly; unfortunately his temperament had suffered no similar improved during his stint in the cachot.

The first time they were on a work detail, he dragged Theodore out of sight of the guards and shoved him backwards onto the gravel.

“You try anything like that little stunt again” he growled, using two knees to grind the stones into Theo's back, “and you will regret it _a lot more than this_ , understand?”

Theodore nodded, gasping for air. He could feel blood starting to seep through the bandages.

The next time, he gritted his teeth and imagined how Barbeau would look, blue and kicking, as he strangled slowly in a noose.

* * *

It took him three months to heal.

In that time he had added four other names to his list; and that was not counting the guards, whose constant blows he hated in the same way as the flies, the humidity and the black bread that was impossible to eat. His life had descended into an exhausting cavalcade of wretchedness. The tremors in his hands spread and the frequent muscle tics made it difficult to sleep; despite this, his constitution remained as robust as ever. By now, he almost didn't care what happened as long as there was an end to it. It was not as if death was in short supply here. Men succumbed every day, of malaria, and typhus, and misery.

But Theodore had spent years methodically planning and executing other people's demise. In a way, the familiarity was almost comforting. The problem was how to do it.

He had nothing to trade; even his body was a commodity belonging to Barbeau, exchangeable for tobacco, money or wine. There were several thousand men in Rochefort; but the ones that Theo had contact with were limited and, of those, the only one he had any sort of liking for was Thierry-Henri.

Thierry was a small man with brown skin, long, dexterous fingers and an expression like a kindly squirrel. He was half-American; he'd told Theodore once that his mother had been a slave out of Saint-Domingue. “My parents came here looking for a better life,” he'd said, wryly. “If I find it, I'll let you know.”

Unfortunately, Thierry-Henri was chained to Baptiste-le-Roux, and if there was anyone in Rochefort that Theodore disliked more than Barbeau, it was Baptiste.

“You should kill him,” he told Thierry, bluntly and quietly, while the others played cards.

Thierry looked at him with a face full of mild reproach. “Calvi, do you know what I'm in here for?”

Theo shook his head. Some forcats liked to boast about the things they'd done to get locked up here, but Theodore considered that a person's crimes were his own business. He wasn't about to go prying.

“I was a clerk.” Thierry told him. “In Lyon. I lost my job; I couldn't get another. So I forged a passport. I knew it was stupid, but I had a wife and two little girls to feed. They sent me to Toulon.”

He shook his head. “There was a riot. I wasn't in it, but two others were. They transferred me here; my friends were guillotined.” He looked at Theodore. “Whatever I might have done, I'm not a killer. Besides-” he made a gesture. “Look at me! Even if I wanted to, I'm just a clerk. You know what Baptiste did to his stepson and those girls in Nîmes- the only reason he's still alive is because his cousin was the magistrate and half the jury was terrified into submission!”

There was a pause. Then Theodore asked, carefully “If I wanted to get something; something against the rules...how would I go about it?”

Thierry looked at him with worried hazel eyes, but he said, very quietly: “What sort of thing?”

Theodore thought about it. “Wire. Thin but strong.”

Thierry nodded.

Two days later, the next time they had a chance to speak without being overheard, he whispered to Theodore: “You see those men over there?” He gestured discreetly to the other end of the salle, where another group of men were engaged in talking and playing cards. “Most of them are haute pègre, not the type you want to cross. That fellow there, Jacques Collin, “Cheats Death,” they call him: Trompe-la-Mort. He looks at you. And that one.” He pointed. “Dannepoint. La Pouraille, he's called. He's on the demi-chaine, works in a factory. They'd have access to wire there.”

“That's all very well,” replied Theo in exasperation. “But how am I going to get them to talk to me?”

Theirry gave him one of his rare, nervous smiles. “Don't worry about that. It's Baptiste's greatest ambition in life to get in with those con-men: they say they never accept a job under ten thousand francs. Leave it to me.”

“I haven't got anything to trade,” Theodore told him, perversely morose.

Thierry looked at him, a weary cynicism in his expression that made him look older than his twenty-nine years. “I'm sure you'll think of something.”

 

* * *

 

 

The next day was a Sunday, which meant Mass. They filed in long rows onto the benches. The chapel was the only building here that Theodore liked. He wasn't particularly religious but the whitewashed walls and solemn chanting reminded him of home. Mass was the same everywhere. On one wall was a flaking mural depicting a kneeling Mary Magdalene washing the feet of Christ. The painting was starting to degrade in the damp climate, but it had clearly been done with careful attention. If he looked at the supplicant Mary from the right angle, she looked like his sister Angioletta.

He couldn't imagine Angie washing anyone's feet; but there was the same combination of olive skin and blue eyes; the same red lips - even a curl of yellow hair escaping from the veil onto high cheekbones. Some days he couldn't look at it, but today his eyes were drawn there, trying to match up the details, to make the fading image in his memory spring back into focus.

Barbeau noticed him looking, and barked out a short laugh. “Look at that! It's like a mirror. Hey, P'tit Jean – don't our Calvi look like the Virgin here?”

Jean laughed. “You old apostate – that's not the Virgin; it's Mary Madeleine.” He peered closer. “Hah-- you're right though- it does look like Calvi.”

Barbeau grinned. “That's even better! The patron saint of whores!” He clapped Theodore on the shoulder. “Come along Madeleine, you're holding up the line.”

The muscle in his forearm jumped, and Theodore gritted his teeth and thought of Barbeau bleeding out, of the way the skin on his neck would part under a knife, the choking sounds he would make.

By the next day, everyone was calling him Madeleine.

That evening la Pouraille crossed the _salle_ to talk to him.

It took him another two months to get the wire, rolled tight inside a hollow coin. Barbeau didn't like him talking to la Pouraille, but there was not a lot he could do about it; it didn't do to cross the swell-mob. He remembered what Antoine had told him, so long ago it seemed like years: Shame's for those who can afford the luxury of it.

Before he had tried to make himself out of stone; now he must be wax. He tried to remember the things the girls back home had found charming, the stupid things his sisters had done to get boys to notice them. Unexpectedly, the image of wide brown eyes sparking warmth in the firelit darkness swam to the top of his thoughts. Viciously, he stamped it down.

He would not think of that now.

* * *

After the weapon, the hardest part was the timing.

* * *

It must be at night, he decided. He wasn't going to lose his head for killing Barbeau alone. Vengeance was meant to be bloody.

Three men were the most he could hope for. He was quick, but small enough that any one of them could take him down in a fair fight. Regretfully, he crossed out Baptiste and Rene. They were the worst, but Baptiste slept out of reach, on the other side of the salle, and Rene was a guard. There was no way he could hope to take down either of them.

That left Arguillard and Petit-Jean.

Jean and Arguillard were coupled together, and slept to the left of Theodore and Barbeau. Under cover of darkness, both had found reason to roll into Theo's bunk, the clanking of chains carefully muffled; in the morning favours would find their way into Barbeau's pockets. Neither of them were small; but Theodore had garrotted fat Maria Stradoni and her husband Pedru, who had been over six foot tall.

He could do it.

One by one, he would kill them in the dark. Garrotting was quiet; if men thrashed briefly and then lay still, well, that was nothing to remark on here.

And then, tomorrow, there would be the guillotine.

All morning, Theodore was keyed up with restless energy, even more than usual before an assassination. In twenty-four hours it would all be over, one way or another.

 

* * *

 

 

It was later that day, while they were at work on breaking up a ship, when the _garde-chiourme_ came.

“You two!” he shouted. “With me!”

“Why?” Theodore asked, and winced as the guard cuffed him. He felt his breath come faster as he fought to keep the panic off his face.

_How had they found out?_

The coin with the wire was still in his shoe; the two sticks for the garrotte handles were beside his pillow, masquerading as a crucifix.

He felt like crying out with impotent fury. He couldn't be executed without carrying out his plan!

It wasn't fair.

They were not taken to the Commissaire however, but to the blacksmith. He watched in bewilderment as the link that bound him to Barbeau was swiftly removed, and another put in its place.

With a jolt, he recognised the other man in the room; a heavyset fellow, around forty years old with a broad face and short, reddish hair. It was Jacques Collin, the one they called Trompe-la-Mort. Theodore had spoken to him now and then whilst he was working on la Pouraille.

And now, apparently, he was Theo's partner. Which was impossible. You couldn't just change; that wasn't how it worked. The rule was three years, at least, unless one of you died or was locked up.

Behind him, he heard Barbeau shouting as Theodore and his new chain-mate were shoved out of the door and back to the hulks.

As soon as the guard had turned his back, Trompe-la-Mort grinned down at him, with a face full of ruddy good humour, and said, in truly terrible Italian:

“Good afternoon to you, little Madeleine.”

Theodore stared at him. No one had spoken anything to him except French since his arrival, and to hear the sound of a language that was almost his own was like being given an unexpected gift; albeit one with horrendously butchered grammar.

“What's going on?” he demanded. “What in the name of shit just happened there?”

Trompe-la-Mort assumed an expression of utterly unconvincing wide-eyed innocence.

“My last partner came down with an unfortunate bout of malaria, and I had a fancy to be coupled with somebody new. So I arranged for your friend Barbeau to be given an unexpected promotion to the demi-chaine.”

Theodore stared at him, as the whistle rang out for the work break.

“You. But. That's impossible!”

Trompe-la-Mort shrugged carelessly. “It wasn't cheap, of course but what is, these days?”

“Why?”

Another shrug. “Ever since Jean-Russe died, Barbeau's chainmates have a habit of going young, and a little bird tipped me off that you might be following them soon. It seemed a terrible waste. They might throw us in here to rot, but we don't have to oblige 'em straight away, do we?”

Theodore was stuck by a fury so intense he was actually rendered speechless. He had been so close! Weeks of planning: for nothing. He would be reassigned beds now; it might be months before he got another chance at any of them.

“It was Thierry-Henri, wasn't it? He tipped you off! Of all the little interfering pieces of- _shit!”_

The last word was half a scream. Careless with anger, he had moved without thinking, letting the manacle scrape against the raw flesh of his ankle.

“What's the matter?” Tromp-la-Mort asked, sudden concern in his voice. Theodore shook his head, gritting his teeth. He should be used to this by now; carelessness was no excuse.

“Show me.”

It was not a request and, reluctantly, Theo held out his ankle, wincing as Trompe-la-Mort gently moved aside the iron ring to expose the bloody flesh and oozing sores underneath. “Christ! Where's your pad?”

Theodore shook his head. An aide in the infirmary had shown him how to put together a _paterasse_ , as the other inmates wore, but it had been made abundantly clear to him that any belongings he might lay claim to were, in point of fact, the rightful property of Yves Barbeau.

“No wonder they die,” Trompe-la-Mort muttered. “What, did he drag you across the yard by one foot?”

Theodore frowned. “We didn't exactly play cards for links.”

His new friend grimaced and one of the wine-ration bottles out of his smock. Uncorking it with his teeth, he doused something that most definitely was not wine over the wounds, ignoring Theodore's harsh intake of breath. Then he unwound a piece of rag from his own leg and bandaged it over the ankle. “That'll do for now. Don't worry; give me a day or two and you shall have a famous pad. Yves shan't trouble you any longer.”

_“I would have killed him!”_

The words came out in Italian; a strangled shout of fury. “Come tomorrow, he would have been a dead man, if it weren't for you. And two more with him!”

Trompe-la-Mort raised his gingery eyebrows, and gave a low chuckle. “Well then, dear boy, it is a good thing for you I paid to have you moved. Don't you know that the punishment for killing another forçat is the guillotine? Who else were you planning to send to the devil tonight?”

“Petit-Jean,” he admitted. “And Arguillard.”

The eyebrows went up again. Theodore half-expected him to ask why. But all he said was: “And just how were you planning to accomplish this little miracle?”

Tersely, Theodore told him.

Trompe-la-Mort frowned. “Little Madeleine,” he said. “It is not that it is a bad plan, but if you are going to kill someone there are better ways than risking your own neck. Come now, we shall find a way to settle these fellows; one that does not involve you having a terminal meeting with the Abbey of Mount Regret.”

For a brief moment Theodore thought of saying that it didn't matter. That Arguillard called out the name of his sweetheart, and Petit-Jean was fast and apologetic, and neither of them were like Baptiste, who did in daylight and liked it to hurt while Thierry-Henri looked miserably the other way.

But he was tired and numb with a weary exhaustion that went all the way to the bone and, above all, he did not want to answer any more questions. So instead he let Trompe-la-Mort fling an arm around his shoulders, and talk with wide, expansive gestures about the philosophies of someone called Rousseau.

 

* * *

 

Yves Barbeau died three days later, when the mast from the ship they were breaking up fell and crushed him. It was an ugly death; he lay there for six hours, his cries growing progressively weaker.

Theodore had never felt pleasure in someone else's dying before, and it shocked him, the terrible undercurrent of joy that ran through him with every yell.

It was a well-known fact that the mast had been rotten. The Comissaire ruled the death an accident; they were not uncommon. What the _bagnards_ whispered in the _salle_ before lights-out was a different matter. Word had begun to spread of the exact reasons Theodore Calvi was in Rochefort and besides, everyone knew that Trompe-la-Mort was gone on Madeleine.

Nobody crossed Trompe-la-Mort.

Petit-Jean and Aguillard were working together on a ship in the harbour, replacing oakum on the outer hull, when the rope they were suspended on snapped. The weight of their chains pulled them down too fast for any rescue to be made.

A halt was called to the work, so that the other ropes could be checked, and witnesses questioned.

Theodore Calvi – although nobody called him that any more – stood on the deck, looking down at the place where the two men had vanished. “He's taken it hard, poor lad” Trompe-la-Mort said to the gard-chiourme on duty. “They were in the next bunk over when he first arrived.”

The guard nodded. It was like that sometimes, with the young ones. Took them a while to toughen up.

Theodore stared down at the razor-blade, dancing over his knuckles. For the honour of the Calvis, he told himself; but honour seemed like a slippery, abstract concept, unreal and far away.

He tried to picture his families' faces and could find only a blurred mixture of details that refused to meld together into a whole. But when he looked down, his tanned fingers on the railing were utterly steady.

* * *

The next day they announced an execution.

It was Thierry-Henri.

Theodore had forgotten that death could do this; could sneak up on you and remove all of your insides at once.

They said that he had attacked a gard-chiourme, and not just any guard but Simoneaux, who everyone knew was a stickler for duty. Hitting a guard was an easy way to commit suicide; they all knew the penalty.

Theodore tried to imagine Thierry hitting anybody and felt his insides clench in protest.

“Can't you do something?” he appealed to Trompe-la-Mort. “Please, Jacques?”

The big man shook his head, sorrow in his eyes. “If there was another day, Madeleine...if I had known before...”

I knew, thought Theodore. I should have known. This is my fault.

They assembled the whole bagne on the quay to watch.

“You don't have to.” Trompe-la-Mort told him. “You can be ill; we can arrange that.”

Theodore shook his head furiously. He would not compound his betrayal further.

They paraded Thierry down the long quay, in front of the assembled crowds. There was a guard on either side, dwarfing him. His eye-sockets were like bruises in his gentle, squirrel-like face, but his expression was calm and hopeless.

It was customary for prisoners to give a speech before their execution, but Thierry-Henri was a quiet man who stammered when he was nervous, and even the Comissaire was not that cruel.

Instead he looked out over the crowd, eyes searching, ignoring the shouted slurs. When he reached Theodore's, he stopped. Theo thought that he was trying for a smile, but when it didn't come, he gave a single jerky nod.

Theodore bowed his head in return. Why, Thierry? he thought. But he knew why. Thierry was not Theodore; he was not a murderer. Theodore had been his only friend, and Theo had not spoken to him since his transfer. Thierry-Henri had saved his life, and in return Theodore had left him in hell.

_I would have saved you. I should have saved you._

When he looked up, Thierry's eyes were still fixed on him, steady and clear as the night sky over the Mediterranean. Theodore wondered if he had managed to find out what happened to his girls. Thierry had written letter after letter, asked every prisoner who came in from Lyon, but no word ever came.

They pushed him to his knees and pulled the strap tight. The triangular blade glinted dully in the watery sunlight. When it fell, it made a sound like an axe going though wood.

Theodore watched as Thierry-Henri's head dropped slowly into the basket.

 

 

* * *

 

There was a period of time following the execution, of days that came one after another, and in them Theodore lost himself.

He knew that he would have to kill Baptiste at some point, and that he would enjoy it, but the certainty was cold and pointless. Thierry-Henri would not have wanted him to enjoy it.

Thierry, for reasons that Theodore had never been able to fathom, had not wanted anyone to die.

Distantly, he was aware of Jacques telling people to leave him alone; bribing a guard; threatening to break someone's arm. He was even grateful, in a remote kind of way.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered how much it had cost to bribe the guards into swapping his chain over.

A lot, he supposed. Probably more money than Theodore was ever likely to see in his life.

Once, he looked up in surprise at Jacques pressing gently on his shoulder. It was the sort of thing that happens all the time; a gesture of comfort of the kind that passes daily between friends, and it took him a moment to place why it should surprise him.

It was because he could not remember the last time that anyone had touched him in that particular way. The closest thing he had had to a friend in six months was Thierry-Henri, and Thierry had flinched away from touch like a cornered animal.

 

* * *

 

 

It was just over a year later, and warm enough to sleep shirtless.

Almost everyone who had arrived at Rochefort with Theodore was dead, because that was what happened at Rochefort.

It was some time in the dead watches of the night, and Jacques was going over the details of the escape plan again, in distinctly Corsican, but rather better, Italian than he had possessed previously, although to Theodore's ears his accent was still atrocious.

“Are you listening, Madeleine?”

“'m listening.” Theodore protested sleepily. He did not mind being called Madeleine so much now; he was used to it, he supposed and besides, it sounded different in Corsican.

At the moment, it mostly sounded like a low rumble, because he was lying with his head on Jacques chest, on a cushion of wiry rust-coloured hair.

He was aware that this was, in fact a very stupid thing to do; if he fell asleep like this, they would both be put on the double-chain for sharing a blanket, and the escape plan would be in ruins and Jacques would be furious.

But he was too tired and comfortable to shift right now; besides Jacques would probably move him even if he did fall asleep.

He felt himself drifting, thinking about bits of the escape plan; and what they'd do if it worked; and if he could find somebody to punch Ferridonc in the nose in just the right way it would stop his damnable snoring.

“Jacques?” he said, quietly. “Are you asleep?”

“Yes. Why?”

“You're not going to die, are you?”

Jacques laughed, which was irritating because it meant Theodore's pillow was suddenly a lot more bumpy.

“Have you forgotten?” he said softly. “I'm Trompe-la-Mort.”

He pushed Theodore gently back on to his own side of the plank. It was like being subjected to a very careful earthquake.

“Now go to sleep, Madeleine. We're escaping in the morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are love.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone from Corsica has my sincere apologies for this.


End file.
